


Hungry Hearts

by insideimfeelindirty



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Masturbation, Post-Canon, long winded excuse for shower sex, the world is ending but that doesn't mean we are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 17:18:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7627144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insideimfeelindirty/pseuds/insideimfeelindirty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>We all swallow lies when our hearts are hungry.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Post 3x16 angsty angst with a dash of smut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hungry Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raincityruckus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raincityruckus/gifts).



> This was supposed to be a quick smutty one shot for [Raincityruckus](http://raincityruckus.tumblr.com/) who wanted some soft, sexy and affectionate post 3x16 shower sex, but it slowly devolved into some hardcore angst, as is normally the case with me. 
> 
> This took years off my life, honestly.

 

_We all swallow lies when our hearts are hungry._

* * *

 

Her skin is sticky with grime, black blood still smeared under her nose and on her chin, unnatural both in colour and provenance.

 

_Natblida._

 

She doesn’t know what it does, this dark presence in her body, thrumming away inside, spreading with each beat of her battered heart, turning the fine veins on her wrists a dark grey under her shallow skin. She doesn’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse that the blood flooding through every capillaries connects her to the first commander, to every commander, to _her_ commander. It’s unnatural because of how it came to be inside her, because of who it came from, because of what it gave to her and what it took away. But still, there is something familiar, something comforting about the steady pulse beating with an unfaltering rhythm and spreading blood the shade of night through her, spreading life to what ought to be dead. She doesn’t try to rub it away or find a river to splash water on her face and clean it off. She’ll hold on to the memory a little longer, for as long as it stains her skin it can’t slip away from her mind, can’t starve her heart. 

 

* * *

 

They walk for days, because when the pain returned it returned with a vengeance. There are many broken bodies, and far more broken minds so she walks slowly, checking on them because Abby can’t, and Jackson won’t. This she can do, try to fix the broken pieces in front of her while the back of her mind screams at her that it won’t help her fix the whole world. Bandaids don’t stop a bleed like this, but they are a reminder that someone somewhere once thought they might, and that’s enough humanity for now for them all. 

 

He walks slowly with her, because he is both broken in his body and in his heart, though he’d never admit to either. They avoid talking about what they cannot fix, at least until they can get their people home, until the horror of individual failings have subsided, until they can sit down with someone who might, just maybe, offer some glimmer of hope. They avoid talking about their losses, because what good will it do for him to know that she loved again, when she thought she would never. What could he possibly gain from knowing that she has blood on her hands, again, from a life she couldn’t save, again, that she has lost what is unlosable, again. Life repeats itself, predictable in the way it keeps delivering blows, the lowest kind, relentlessly, mercilessly. What good could possibly come from explaining this to Bellamy, who knows this better than anyone else, who understands this on the basest level, who has felt it on his body and in his bones. What good can come of explaining this to a man who walks beside her with an empty gun holster strapped to his leg and hard, red scabs marring his face, knuckles heavy from fighting demons.

 

He walks beside her, but his head turns and scans the forest around them, looking for but not expecting to see his sister. She can tell by the way he doesn’t talk about her, the way he doesn’t mention her name, her betrayal or his own.  His silence on the subject tells her that she is his bleeding wound, the one no amount of bandaids can fix. She is the wound, but she is not the only one. He doesn’t talk about Octavia, and he doesn’t talk about Gina either, not much. _She was too good for me_ , is all he says, and the way he looks down and away from her, the way his curls fall over his face and cover his expression tells her everything she needs to know. He will never think he is good enough for anyone, nothing he does will ever be enough, and Gina will never be able to prove him wrong, and Octavia will never try to, so he will bleed for her and for Octavia and for Lincoln and for everything that could have been but never will be. And she will let him, because she has her own bleeding to stop and not enough bandaids for them both, so what good will it do for them to talk about it?

 

They walk side by side, slowly, silently, holding on to happier memories because it’s what keeps their hearts half-full, full enough not to let darkness take over. They need each other like this, their shared experiences and their mirrored experiences binding them together both by choice and by default. It’s what keeps the other afloat, seeing their own pain reflected in eyes that glint with survivor’s defiance. They walk slowly, for days, for as long as it takes to reach Arkadia, to put physical and emotional distance between themselves and Polis and A.L.I.E. They walk slowly even though time is of the essence, even though time is their most finite resource, because they both understand that to save the world you have to try and save yourself first. You have to save yourself enough so you have the strength to do the job for everyone else. If they keep their memories alive and their hearts from starving, maybe they have a chance after all. 

* * *

 

When they reach Arkadia the group seems to let out a collective breath of relief at the sight of something familiar, of something that reminds them of who they were before, when they could still feel. Even Abby, whose hands have been shaky and eyes red rimmed and wide in disbelief for days and days now, seems to slacken her shoulders ever so slightly. Kane slides a bandaged hand down her back gently and tips his head slightly to study her with concern in his eyes. It’s a small gesture but she recognises the intimacy in it immediately, stops in her tracks and just watches as Marcus Kane leads her mother though the busted metal gates. 

 

“Clarke."

 

His voice cracks and his footsteps falter behind her. She doesn’t turn but she already knows that his eyes are pleading and his brow is knotted.

 

“I’m coming inside this time."

 

She can feel him hesitating behind her, can feel the hurt still lingering from the last time they were standing outside the gates of Arkadia watching their beaten, broken people fill through the gates. She can still feel the distance those months created between them, the precarious trust between them wavering. 

 

“I _am_. Just give me a moment.”

 

She turns back to glance at him, to convince him, but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move. He just gives her that look, the one that became so familiar to her those months she was away that any other look on him almost feels foreign to her. Hurt. Disappointment. Desperation. But there is something darker in there now, something bordering on hopelessness and she can’t take that from him, so she quickly turns away. 

 

Ahead of her, past those tall gates hanging precariously off their hinges lies her biggest challenge yet. How to stop the end of the world? How to save her people yet again? She doesn’t even know if it is possible. She doesn’t even know how to tell them. She doesn’t know if she should. It’s been a long time since she felt this unsure of herself. 

 

A heavy hand lands softly on her shoulder, warmth spreading and settling deep in her gut. She closes her eyes and sighs deeply, galvanising. 

 

“Sometimes I just wish happy endings weren’t so hard to fabricate around here,” she says, voice heavy with responsibility. 

 

He squeezes her shoulder gently and it’s all she needs to finally make her feet move forward again, towards the inevitable, back towards the inescapability of the future. 

 

 

* * *

 

Hours later its her mother who drives her out of their quarters. Its not her continued silence, her wild, pleading eyes or her utter loss of motor skills, or the sobs that just won’t escape. It’s the guilt that feeds all those things that make her skin crawl and restlessness spreads to her bones. She knows that guilt too well, has lived with and still lives with the crushing burden of the blood on her hands and the lives she couldn’t save. She can’t bear those heavy brown eyes on her asking for something she ultimately has to find inside herself, so she runs away. 

 

She finds the others, similarly displaced, huddled together in the mess hall, already deep into the moonshine. She sinks down next to Raven, grateful for the lively, elated chatter that speaks to their ignorance of the impending doom. It’s liberating, for once, to get sucked into their relief, their cautious optimism. The moonshine burns her throat and makes her eyes water, and she slams the cup down a little too hard on the table. Across from her Jasper sends her a thin smile, but he doesn’t join them in drinking. He looks fragile, and again guilt rises in her throat, both from what has already happened and from what will. She looks away from him, grateful for the refill from Murphy of all people. She doesn’t want to dwell on the decision she has to make on the powder keg she’s sitting on, not tonight, not yet. She knocks back another cup, it’s the only way she can drink this stuff, hard and fast and holding her breath. She feels the knots in her neck loosen as the alcohol spreads, feels the sharp pain in her heart dissipate, feels numbness seep into her. 

 

Before long Bellamy sinks down on the bench next to her, his eyes heavy on her. She feels his gaze as she taps her cup against the metal table, motions for Murphy to fill her up and takes another big swig.  Suddenly every joke Jasper cracks makes her giggle uncontrollably, Monty’s arm around Harper makes her gush loudly and she smiles stupidly at Raven’s long rant about being inside A.L.I.E. Bellamy is mostly silent next to her, but she can feel his wordless judgement and it makes her demand more from the bottle Murphy is clutching tightly, more than she normally would, more than she probably feasibly can hold. The others eventually filter out one by one, sometimes two by two, until it’s just her, Raven, Murphy and Bellamy left. Murphy and Raven are snapping at each other about something she no longer cares to or tries to follow. Bellamy is quietly nursing his own cup of moonshine and she can practically hear him thinking, hear him running scenarios over inside his head. The room spins around her and suddenly she can’t stomach sitting next to him and his stoic silence any longer. 

 

The air outside is cool and bites the skin on her face, the ground unsteady and treacherous under her wobbly feet. She nearly stumbles a few times but rather this than waiting for the inevitable _don’t you think you’ve had enough_ or _take it easy_ followed by a meaningful, _we have to save the world remember_ look. She scratches at the hard black scab on her neck, tearing at the edges until the scab comes clean off. The dry, crusted blood under her fingernails is yet another reminder of the distance stretching between her and the memories she’s trying to keep alive and vibrant. She just wants so badly to hold on to those last happy moments, but memories are slippery, and with each passing moment reality forces itself through, practicality and necessity pushing down nostalgia and making memories shimmer and fade from her mind. She studies her wrist in the harsh white beam of the floodlights, the dark grey web stretching and pulsing under the skin like the last physical manifestation of those final moments with Lexa. She rubs frantically at her wrist as if this blood is the only thing still connecting her with her memories, as if its the only thing that will keep hopelessness at bay. Her eyes burn as tears push past heavy lashes, breath ragged and lungs filling with the sharp pain of cold air and broken dreams. 

 

She hears his heavy footsteps between her own short puffs of breath, and again he doesn’t say anything, just watches her silently. 

 

“Why can’t you just give me one day?” she manages, trying and failing to tamp down on the rising hysteria bubbling up in her throat. 

 

“Clarke…” 

 

“I just need one fucking day, ok? Just one day where I can just be, where I don’t have to save the world, where I don’t have to put everyone else before myself."

 

Her voice is harsh and spitting, pressing out cold words like bullets and not waiting to see if they land. He doesn’t say anything, just takes a step forward before stopping himself. 

 

“Just let me be selfish, just for today.” 

 

The high pitch in her voice is desperate even to her own ears, desperate and furious, and the ground is shaky again and nothing feels right anymore. Her knees bruise on impact as she drops to the hardening ground, cold biting her nails as fingers dig into the dirt, black blood stiffening in her veins. Her stomach churns and her ears ring as the world starts spinning around her, and she digs deeper into the dirt trying to hold on. Bile rises in her throat unexpectedly, saliva flooding her mouth, forcing her forward down towards the ground. Her stomach contracts and purges all its miserable contents, rushing out of her and taking all her fight with it. She gags and heaves for air, as she is vaguely aware of hands carefully holding her hair back and running small circles on her back. Heavy sobs pierce the silent night sky and burn her lungs, and she is helpless and listless as strong arms pull her up and away, searing her cold bones with heat. He almost carries her down dim lighted corridors as she slumps against him, bone tired and spent, not caring where he takes her as long as she doesn’t have to participate. She vaguely registers familiar surroundings and a soft bed that feels too much like forgiveness and she just manages to gulp down the glass of water he presses into her hands before darkness finds her and she is out cold. 

* * *

 

Her dreams are thick and difficult to grasp at, the echoes of her mind make her squirm and toss in sleep. Awareness is out of reach as she sinks deeper, clawing her way towards the surface but slipping under as she tries to fight it. Memories are lost in here, slipping between her fingers as her mind tries to conjure them. She is hungry, starving as she reaches out and finds purchase, finds solid ground and searing heat. She pulls herself closer, need surpassing logic, seeking and finding. Her hands find soft hair and soft lips and she surges into it, clinging on, inhaling like it’s the air she’s been needing all this time. The goosebumps on her neck and the heavy warmth in her stomach lifts her consciousness, lifts the clouds from her mind but keeps her in the fog. She’s kissing someone, she thinks, guesses, but it feels like a dream, the intensity of it convincing her of its authenticity and letting the clouds drag her under again. Tongues glide over each other, tracing their urgency over each others lips, insistently, hungrily. She sighs into each inhale of breath and aches against each press up against a hard, warm body. Hands reach and arms hold, and under the cloud cover someone is reaching just as far and holding just as tightly as she ever needed. There is a quiet yearning in her movements, an urge to lose herself, chasing release, but the clouds hold her under, makes her lazy and slow. She fades back into darkness with a shiver, the echoes of a memory dragging her down and away, fuller and more satisfied.

 

 

* * *

 

She wakes up the next morning disorientated and dazed. Her head is heavy and her mouth is dry, her stomach churning with more than the burn of alcohol and emptiness. She tries to grasp at the tangible to explain the doubt rolling over her in waves. She’s in Bellamy’s bed, which is less of a surprise than she thought it might have been. He’s fast asleep next to her, back turned, but it doesn’t feel wrong, it just feels confusing. Like there is something important about that which she can’t put her finger on. She’s fully clothed, which makes her furrow her brow, but she can’t figure out why there is a question mark in the back of her head at that. They’ve slept next to each other plenty of times, more times than she can count, and there is nothing strange about that in itself, and the more the night before comes back to her the more sense it makes that she is here in his bed. But there is something about the pieces of this puzzle that she can’t quite place. She remembers anger and sadness and desperation, and she remembers him taking it like he takes anything, on his chin, on his shoulders, like he’s a mountain no storm can move. Guilt flashes behind her eyes, red and hot, because she knows he needs her like she needs him - strong and unwavering, so he doesn’t sink under the weight they must carry together. 

 

She remembers her dream too, or she remembers the feeling of needing someone so deeply and of feeling something so intensely, a fresh new memory on top of the old ones that keep slipping through the cracks of her mind. She glances at her wrist, at the dark grey web spreading under her pale skin. Sleep is so much easier than being awake. Things tend to fall apart when she’s awake. 

 

He stirs next to her, eyes groaning with sleep and limbs heavy and sluggish like he’s moving through water. He turns to look at her, and there is a lightness to his face she hardly ever sees, a brief moment of oblivion before he remembers responsibility again and his eyelashes drop like stones against his cheeks. He shoots her a thin smile before something passes over his face, something like bewilderment or wonder, and his lips turn upwards for a fraction of a moment, before he shuts it down. A frown settles between his brows and his lips form around a soundless expletive, before he turns away from her. 

 

“I need a shower,” she croaks out, because she doesn’t understand what it means and because her brain feels like it’s two sizes too big for her scull. The blush that creeps down her cheeks and throat is as inexplicable to her as it is unstoppable. 

 

“Go ahead,” he mumbles into the crook of his elbow, unreadable and unapproachable, even if she’d had the energy to probe him. “There’s a clean towel in there."

 

She takes a moment to roll out of bed, bare feet cold against the floor.

 

“You can use my toothbrush if you want,” he adds, almost like an afterthought except he says it so carefully that she knows its not. 

 

She brushes her teeth while bracing herself against the wall, brain spinning circles around her and legs betraying her. She has to take a break afterwards, sinking down on the toilet seat while sweat beads on her neck and her hands shake uncontrollably. She tries to remember how many of those cups she knocked back, but the thought of it alone makes her gag slightly so she settles for too many. She leans over the sink, breathes deeply and lets cold water trickle over her forehead while she tries to find the strength to stand back up.

 

A soft knock on the door lets her know she’s failing miserably.

 

“Clarke?"

 

“I’m ok,” she squeaks, in the least persuasive way possible.

 

“You don’t sound too ok."

 

She grips the cool metal of the sink tightly as the room spins slightly, sighing heavily and hopelessly, wishing letting herself go didn’t always come with such painful consequences. A soft thunk on the bathroom door, which sounded an awful lot like a scull banging up against it, urges her to concede. 

 

“Maybe I need some help."

 

She’s not above asking for help, but this isn’t asking for military support, or a peace treaty or for a blood transfusion, this is asking for basic human assistance, and humiliation flushes her face red as the door opens carefully and steady hands pull her up from her hunched position. 

 

“Sorry,” she mumbles into the crook of his arm as he holds her upright with one hand and turns the shower on with the other. 

 

“Stop apologising,” he huffs, checking the temperature with his hand. She feels heavy and spineless in his arms, but he holds her up with ease, pressing her up against himself. It’s comforting in its familiarity, she could always rely on him to bear the things she couldn’t herself, physically. “That stuff is lethal."

 

He doesn’t admonish or even fault her in the slightest, he just continues to turn the knobs with one hand until he’s happy with the temperature of the water. 

 

“I’m sorry I’m such a mess,” she insists, swaying slightly as he moves her forward, lifting the hem of her shirt hesitantly. She raises her arms above her shoulders in answer, letting him peel the worn shirt over her head. “And I’m sorry for shouting at you, at least let me apologise for that."

 

He doesn’t comment, just slides a warm palm around her waist, catching her as she loses her balance for a moment. He manages to open the buttons on her trousers with one hand, and she tries to not dwell on how swiftly he does it as the fabric skims her bare legs and he helps her step out of them. He walks her over to the shower, placing her under the water spray, holding her steady by her hips as she scrambles at the wall for support. The water is warm enough for her not to jump, but cool enough for her to feel the soothing effects of heavy drops beating down on her head. He’s still fully clothed behind her, his clothes heavy and soaking as he keeps her steady under the stream. 

 

“You know, you can have that,” he mutters as he reaches for the shampoo bottle on the shelf in front of her, his body pressed flat up against her back. “If you need to have a break, if you need to stop being the hero for a while, I can give that to you. You can have that."

 

She leans back into him as he slowly spreads shampoo into the matted knots in her hair, his nails scraping softly against her scalp, the pads of his thumbs gently soothing her foggy brain. He carefully runs his fingers through her locks, trying to unravel some of the knots that have gathered there over the past weeks, giving up with audible sighs at the more stubborn ones. 

 

“Thank you.” 

 

Those two words don’t begin to cover her gratitude for all that he does and all that he is to her, but it’s all she has and she hopes her urgent delivery conveys some of the depth behind the sentiment. She reaches up to squeeze his wrist slightly, and he pauses his work for just a moment before he continues, easing her broken body and tired mind with healing fingers. 

 

He moves her under the spray again and the water comes away brown as it circles the drain and disappears. She runs a hand over her face and there is specks black disappearing in the steady stream, the last remnants of night blood washed off, but it feels right, and it feels good; warm fingers still working her scalp. His hands ghost down the sides of her body when he’s satisfied with his work, sending chills up her spine, each vertebrae igniting with small electric shocks. She turns back to steal a glance at him, and his eyes are half closed, turned away from her, wet curls clinging desperately to his forehead. She straightens up, lets go of the cool metal walls, steady on her feet again. 

 

“It wasn’t a dream, was it?"

 

Her heart aches with hollow emptiness, with heavy echoes of ghosts, emaciated and shrunken at the loss of memories that are too slippery to hold. She is hungered, tired of walking into rooms and finding them empty, reaching for a home and coming up empty every time. Hot hands burn against her ribs, robbing her of breath but grounding her to the floor like a tree spreading roots. 

 

“No it wasn’t,” he says, voice a little cracked, a little deeper than normal.

 

His hands land and stop on her hips, water trickling down her face and her body. He leans closer, his cheek pressed up against her neck, fat drops of water dripping from his curls to land on her bare shoulder. She sighs at the inevitability of it all, because this was always coming, she just didn’t think it would be now. He is her end, and in some ways she always understood that, so she never pushed it, knowing that however long it took, the end would start when they finally found their way to each other. She turns in his arms, looking up at helpless, pleading eyes with their own ghosts dancing in them. It isn’t conscious choice or unconscious instinct that make her close the distance between them, it’s inescapable necessity that propels her forward, makes her brush her lips against his, hesitantly at first, then fearlessly. It’s as urgent in her lucid state as it was in hazy oblivion, tongue tracing teeth, lips capturing skin. She kisses him as if every silent word and understanding passing between them is finally floating to the surface, her mouth so full of his name that there is no room for denial. 

 

When they come up for air, he is out of breath, panting into the space between them, forehead resting on hers, droplets of water clinging to his lashes. His hands move up to cup her face, to keep her in his orbit and when he blinks away the water to meet her gaze she already knows whats next. 

 

“Clarke, I.."

 

“Don’t."

 

She knows what he is going to say, because it’s as inevitable as everything else about them, but she’s not ready and neither is he. She’s not ready to accept his words, to open herself up again, to meet her end. If this is it she wants it to last, to kill her softly, slowly, successively.

 

“Don’t say it, just..” 

 

She pulls him close, swallows his words and feeds the lie between them, that this is something that won’t end up killing them both. His skin is like fire under her touch, something wild in it compelling her to drag her nails against it to see if she will awaken a tiger or find a kitten. Savage violence erupts between them and he pushes her up against the icy cold of the metal walls, tearing at the scraps of material still covering her. His mouth travels down, trailing stars behind as it flits over bone and flesh, teeth and tongue making her moan and gasp in intervals. Her hands are rough and demanding on his soaked clothes, tearing at his shirt to rid them of the last barriers between them. He pulls away from her then, dark eyes weighing her down and keeping her frozen in place as he backs off. He slows down, lifts the hem of his shirt slowly, deliberately, maddeningly. His eyes burn holes in her head, warming her up from her core as he pulls the soaked material over his head and discards it with a wet slap on the floor. There is no urgency as he works on the top button of his trousers, none of the swift undoing that he administered on hers. He knows what she wants, has always known she supposes, that softly, slowly, successively is the way it has to be with them. She makes no move to hurry him up as he watches her under heavy, dripping lashes, peeling off layers until he is exposed to her. The moment stretches between them, neither wanting to break the magic of a moment where something so expected, yet startling is waiting to unfold. There is something profoundly beautiful of teetering on the precipice of a moment in time that she knows will define her, unravel her and complete her, to watch it stretch before her and know that all she wants to do is to fall and not care where she lands.

 

He lets his eyes slip from hers, travelling down her body, taking in the goosebumps that are puckering her skin, widening at the hardened peaks, darkening at the soft crevices. She lets her hands drop to the focus of his gaze, steady now, galvanised under his scrutiny, bold and fearless in their exploration. His eyes flick upwards and she takes the hint, letting one hand leave wet curls and travel up her slick skin, fingers flicking over puckered buds, lighting a fire deep in her gut. His mouth falls open as eyes flit back and forth between her caressing hands, watching her skin prickle under her own touch. She casts her own eyes down the hard lines of his body, encouraging his own hands to join their wordless game, increasing her own speed and pressure to match his. He touches her without using his hands, but she can feel his coaxing in her own touch, she can feel his desire move her fingers across the dips and curves of her flesh just as intimately as if he were doing the touching himself. There is nothing but the harsh exhales of strained breath and the soft sound of constant patter of water between them, the clean smell of his shampoo clinging to her hair and mixing with the heavy spice of wet, warm and dark. She falls heavily back against the wall as spots start to cloud her vision, as her toes start to curl and her back starts to arch on its own accord. He stalks across the floor to her then, lifting her up with a sudden passion that winds her, pressing her back up against the wall and pushing her legs apart with one knee. Her feet leave the floor, wrapping around the sharp angles of his hips, heels digging into springy flesh. She sinks down to meet him, breath hitching in her throat as he stretches her, taking his desire deeply. His breath his hot against her neck, and the words that he gasps into her skin get lost in her loud moans. Untamed electricity courses through her veins and sparkle behind her eyes as she throws her head back and falls, and falls, and falls. Exquisite pain racks her body, frazzling her every nerve and it takes her several heavy breaths to realise her teeth have found purchase deep into the flesh of his shoulder. 

 

“Don’t move,” he warns her, breathlessly, dangerously. 

 

She clings on to him, feeling him twitch and pulse inside her as her own body rides out her spasms. He groans into her collarbone, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her ass with such fervour that she lets out a soft cry. He fills her up, makes her thighs tremble and her her chest stretch around and welcome what is familiar but also entirely new. 

 

When they’re both soft and warm and sated, he lowers her gently down to the floor, turns the water to warm and pulls her close. His breath his slow but shaky, his heartbeat loud and strong, thumping heavily against her chest. His fingers still grip her tightly, but with a quiet insistence rather than wild abandon. They stay like that for ages, running slow circles over wrinkled skin, water dripping down on them, silently filling up their hearts, new memories on top of the old. 

 

 

* * *

 

It’s four months until she lets him say those words. Four months of fear, of helplessness, of violence, of more deaths they can’t prevent, of more pain than they ever thought they’d have to bear. Four months of growing and receding hope, of discovering the true meaning of _natblida_ , of finding small pockets of light in the darkness, of reminding each other constantly what’s still worth fighting for, of managing, despite all odds, to survive and to save lives, lives that matter and lives that are worthy. Four months of healing together, of softly, slowly, successively. Four months of more showers, beds, caves, bunkers, forest floors and stolen moments. Four months of not touching another drop of moonshine. Four months and she is finally ready to hear him say those words, to hear what she has always known, always felt, but has been too broken to accept.

 

“Now you can say it,” she whispers into the crook of his neck, heavy with sleep and slow in her movements.

 

She presses a soft, lingering kiss on his shoulder, lightly grazing her fingertips over the smooth skin of his back, stirring him. He captures her hands in his and brings them to his lips, kissing each finger gently. His voice is thick and gravely, untested, when he finally speaks.

 

“I love you."

 

She smiles into the freckles on his back, winding herself tightly around him in reply. Her heart is so full it could burst, swollen and engorged and  disgusting, fat with selfish happiness.

 

“Now will you let me sleep?"

 

And as much as she knows this will be the end of them, it feels a lot like a beginning. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [The Bellarkes](http://thebellarkes.tumblr.com/), but you can also come find me shitposting on [my normal tumblr](http://insideimfeelinpurrdy.tumblr.com/)


End file.
